by David Loades
And albeit it might please Almighty God to continue me still in this mind to live out of the state of marriage, yet it is not to be feared but that he will so work in my heart and in your wisdoms as good provision by his help may be made in convenient time, whereby the realm shall not remain destitute of an heir ...[464]
Elizabeth did not, however, place this at the head of her list of priorities. God had given her a realm to rule, not as a consort but as a sovereign, and it remained to be seen whether she could square the duties which that imposed upon her with the submissiveness required of a sixteenth-century wife. Her sister Mary had faced that same difficulty, and had never satisfactorily resolved it, while her own mother, although not a sovereign, had faced a similar conflict between her political instincts and her conjugal duty. Under the stern eye of Henry VIII, that had led to disaster, but Elizabeth was answerable to no one but God, and perhaps He would sympathise. John Aylmer saw her as being two distinct persons, the one public and the other private. Responding to a conventional argument he said:
You say God hath appointed her to be subject to her husband … therefore she may not be the head. I grant that, so far as pertaining to the bands of marriage, and to the offices of a wife, she must be a subject; but as a Magistrate she may be her husbands head. Why may not the woman be the husband’s inferior in matters of wedlock, and his head in the guiding of the commonwealth.[465]
Elizabeth, however, rightly perceived that this dichotomy would not work. A sovereign who was also a wife needed to be emancipated from the normal constraints of matrimony, and it would be very difficult to find a husband on those terms.
However, such thoughts did not deter her from entering the European marriage market, where her price could well be unique. It is not clear what conditions her former brother-in-law, Philip of Spain, had in mind when he proposed to her in December 1558, except that it would have been a highly political marriage.[466] The story that he had become enamoured of his attractive sister-inlaw before his wife’s death unfortunately belongs to the world of historical fiction. Philip was concerned to continue the Anglo- Spanish alliance which was currently fighting against France, and any consideration of personal or sexual gratification was distinctly secondary. Realising this perfectly well, Elizabeth politely declined his offer. The prospect of a Habsburg alliance was nevertheless an attractive one, particularly to the council, and a positive response was made to the suggestion of the Archduke Charles, a younger son of the Emperor Ferdinand, as a candidate. The Queen’s reaction was equivocal. She professed her preference for the single life, but recognised the legitimacy of concern about the succession, and did not reject him out of hand. Consequently in 1559 a protracted and convoluted negotiation began, which concentrated particularly on the nature of the Archduke’s position as King of England, and on the religious rights which might accompany any marriage.[467] Charles (and his advisers) naturally insisted upon the mass as the minimum concession, and while some members of her council might have been willing to concede this, Elizabeth herself was adamantly opposed. Whether this was out of genuine conviction, or a desire to protract the negotiations in the interests of national security is not apparent, but by 1565 the exchanges were becoming unreal, and collapsed eventually in 1567, to widespread sighs of relief from the more committed Protestants in Elizabeth’s court.[468]
While this negotiation chugged discouragingly ahead, the Queen, operating on a different level of reality, had fallen in love. This time it was not rather theoretical arguments about gender and authority which created the imperative, but sex. Elizabeth knew she was a woman like any other, but since the Seymour episode had kept herself on a tight leash. However, the attractiveness of Robert Dudley proved too much for her defences. She began a flirtation of which her mother might have been proud. He was the third son of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland, and they had known each other in a sense since both were adolescents at King Edward’s court.[469] They had shared the perils of Mary’s reign, and had even been lodged in the Tower at the same time in 1554, although it is unlikely that that experience improved their acquaintance. After their release, their friendship had been maintained, and it is even rumoured that she borrowed money off him at one juncture, although her financial circumstances should have been a good deal easier than his. At that time he was living the life of a country gentleman in Norfolk, married since 1549 to Amy, the daughter of Sir John Robsart. Elizabeth’s accession to the throne led to an immediate recall to the court, and she almost immediately conferred upon him the office of Master of the Horse, a position worth £1,500 a year, and carrying regular rights of access to the royal person.[470] His prospects were transformed overnight, and within about six months it was being rumoured that he was putting his rights of access to improper use. Kate Ashley, Elizabeth’s Principal Gentlewoman and general chaperone, became understandably anxious at these rumours, declaring that in showing herself so affectionate towards him, her honour and dignity were becoming sullied.[471] Dudley’s favour was also creating unhealthy rivalries within the court, because the older nobility resented him bitterly as the son of a parvenue, and one moreover who had been executed for high treason. The Duke of Norfolk blamed the difficulties of the Habsburg marriage negotiations on these reports of the Queen’s behaviour, while a number of young hopefuls hitched their wagons to his in the hope of rising with him. She was not only flirting with a young man of no lineage, she was also flirting with a married man, whom she could not be intending to marry. Early in 1560 the rumours subsided, because everyone, including the Queen was preoccupied with the affairs of Scotland, but no sooner had William Cecil returned to London with the completed treaty of Edinburgh than they began again. Cecil himself was in despair, and spoke of resigning the secretaryship, more because of Elizabeth’s behaviour than because the success of his Scottish labours had been largely ignored in the orgy of lustful speculation.[472] It was widely believed that Dudley had designs on his wife’s life, so that he might be free to marry the Queen; and then in September it happened. Amy was found dead at the foot of the stairs in Cumnor Hall, which she and Robert were renting while he was occupied at court. The circumstances were suspicious, and all fingers pointed at Robert Dudley.
Any forensic examination of Amy Dudley’s death is likely to be inconclusive.[473] The servants had been given a day off, which looks suspicious but could be entirely innocent. It has been argued that a fall down stairs would have been unlikely to be fatal, and was not the real cause of her death. On the other hand, it was reported at the time that she was unwell, with a ‘malady in one of her breasts’, which sounds like breast cancer, which, undiagnosed and untreated, would have given her brittle bones. Lord Robert was carefully kept away from Cumnor while the coroner’s jury considered the evidence, and indeed was as keen as anyone that the jury should operate free from any suspected interference. The Queen was equally cautious, and kept him away from the court while the deliberations were on-going. The coroner’s court returned a verdict of death by misadventure, and that should have been the end of the matter; but of course it wasn’t.[474] One anonymous chronicler noted that ‘the people say she was killed by reason that he [Dudley] forsook her company without cause’. The people no doubt said lots of other things, because Dudley was not popular, and careful though she was, the Queen’s reputation was tarnished. Sir Nicholas Throgmorton at the French court, was assailed with ribald humour:
… one laugheth at us, an other threateneth, an other revileth her Majesty, and some let not to say what religion is this that a subject shall kill his wife, and the prince not only bear withal but marry with him …[475]
Throgmorton’s distress was typical of that suffered by loyal defenders of the Queen’s position, and it became obvious that to marry Dudley would be political suicide. The rumours did not go away, and years later the author of Leicester’s Commonwealth accused Sir Richard Verney, the owner of Cumnor, of making away with Amy on the orders of her husband. This was admittedly a v
irulently polemical tract, but it reflected what was widely believed in London at the time.[476] Dudley did all the right things. He spent nearly £2,000 on his wife’s funeral, and wore mourning for about six months, but when he returned to court in October he received a number of marks of personal favour, and believed, unrealistically, that his hopes of marriage were still alive. Quite typically, Elizabeth sent out ambiguous signals, and frictions within the court built up again. The nobility were rumoured to be ready to rebel if the marriage took place, and there was an affray between Dudley’s servants and those of the Earl of Pembroke.[477] Nevertheless, anyone who openly slandered the favourite was in danger of the royal wrath, and William Cecil (who was as opposed to the marriage idea as anyone) was forced to behave with the utmost discretion. At the same time, in November 1560, the Queen drew back from the idea of conferring a title on Robert, and since this would have been a necessary precursor to marriage, it may be that by then she had decided that the idea was impossible, although that is by no means clear. She would not have forgotten that her father had conferred the title of Marquis of Pembroke upon her mother nearly thirty years before, with just such an intention. What is clear is that Elizabeth was in considerable distress of mind. As a woman she desired Dudley wholeheartedly, and could barely keep her hands off him in public, but as a queen she recognised the likely outcome of any decision to marry him. It would probably cost her crown, and that meant more to her than any man. It is even possible that she was party to a devious ploy by Lord Robert in February 1561 to secure the backing of King Philip for the match, in return for some form of toleration for English Catholics.[478] The only evidence for these exchanges comes from De Quadra, the Spanish ambassador, who may have misrepresented their intention, but it seems that Dudley was in earnest, and it can only be surmised that Elizabeth was playing her usual double game. It is hard to credit that she was aware of Lord Robert’s alleged offer to reconvert the realm to Catholicism in return for the King of Spain’s support. Her Church, like her Crown, meant more to her than sexual gratification.[479]
Elizabeth nearly died of the smallpox in October 1562, and for about a week anxiety was intense. There was much speculation about the succession in the event of her death, one party supporting Lady Catherine Grey, and another the Earl of Huntingdon. The Queen was powerless to prevent these discussions, but she said two things which relate to her relationship with Dudley, and which in the circumstances are highly revealing. In the first place she swore that, in spite of appearances, they had never had sexual intercourse, and in the second place she wanted him made protector of the realm if she should die.[480] This provision indicates that she was prepared to leave the succession to be decided by her council, and that her trust in Lord Robert was undiminished, but that she had not committed herself to him physically, and would never do so. Although he remained her favourite, he was henceforth confined politically to membership of the Privy Council, where he quickly assumed a dominant role, usually in opposition to Sir William Cecil. It was largely through his influence that the Queen intervened in the affairs of France in 1562–3, and burned her fingers badly when the Huguenots settled with the government and turned against her.[481] Her trust in his judgement was never entirely restored. Ironically enough, his elevation to the earldom of Leicester, which occurred on 29 September 1564 had more to do with her rather far-fetched idea that he would be a suitable husband for the Queen of Scots than for herself. How seriously this idea was intended is not very clear, and Mary was not amused at being offered Elizabeth’s ‘cast off lover’, but whether this was ever more than a game played between them is not apparent. Dudley apparently professed himself willing to do his duty, but never regarded it as a realistic proposition.[482] As Earl of Leicester he was properly endowed with landed estates, including the magnificent castle of Kennilworth where in 1575 he entertained his royal mistress with lavish splendour, endued with dramatic representations of true love, perhaps in a forlorn and belated hope that she would change her mind about marrying him. By the time of these entertainments Robert was in an adulterous relationship with Lettice, Countess of Essex. This was, of course, kept secret, but after her husband died in September 1576, their intimacy increased and she became pregnant. In the spring of 1578 he secretly married her at Kennilworth.[483] Inevitably Elizabeth found out, and became immensely and quite irrationally angry. Robert was man like any other, and could not be satisfied indefinitely with the kind of platonic relationship which was the most that she was prepared to offer. The fact that he had enjoyed a rather similar association with Lady Douglas Sheffield remained unknown to her. He seems to have made his peace privately with his irate mistress, because although his wife was banished from the court, it appears that his reign as royal favourite continued unchecked. Lettice was not satisfied with secrecy. A secret marriage could be too easily repudiated if circumstances should change, so they went through a public ceremony before witnesses in September, and Elizabeth seems to have reconciled herself to the situation.[484] It was, after all, only a return to that which had appertained before September 1560, except that the Queen was now over forty, and even the keenest advocates of matrimony now recognised that it was probably too late to secure the succession. She had been conducting a diplomatic flirtation with the Duke of Anjou since 1572, and that continued in a fitful fashion, with endless wrangling over religious rights, and what powers the Duke would enjoy in England. At this stage there was no sexual frisson in those discussions whatsoever.[485]
Meanwhile, Elizabeth ruled as no man could have done. A king, if he were of suitable age, was expected to show military prowess, ideally on the field of battle, but a least in the war games of the tilt and the tournament. Such a role was not possible for a queen, and Mary had deliberately distanced herself from all such entertainments, but Elizabeth embraced them enthusiastically. She became the ‘Queen of Fairie’, presiding glamorously, where every courtier was supposed to wear her favour in the lists, and to offer her their tribute of daring-do. Using the tropes of the courtly love tradition, she became the unattainable but desirable lady, with whom all her servants were supposed to be in love.[486] Even aging ministers of State were required to play this game, accepting the reward of a smile or a small favour in lieu of the more substantial rewards that they might reasonably have expected. She also made remorseless use of the female stereotype. A woman was supposed to be fickle, and to change her mind? Very well, she would procrastinate endlessly, in order to demonstrate that she alone could make certain critical decisions. Let them wait! She would not be taken for granted, and probably rejoiced when her council was divided, because that gave her more freedom of action.[487] This was particularly demonstrated in her relations with Spain, where she continued to give Philip’s ambassadors bland assurances of goodwill while allowing (and even encouraging) the remorseless depredations of her freebooting subjects, particularly John Hawkins and Francis Drake. She was a mere woman; how could she know about such things? Two other aspects of her foreign policy especially demonstrate this feminine style of diplomacy – her relationship with the Dutch rebels and her search for a husband. This latter was a unique operation which took her agents and representatives to Sweden, Vienna and Paris over more than twenty years.[488] There they were expected to respond positively to all the suggestions made, but also to insist on personal visits by the prospective grooms, and to avoid any outright commitment, particularly on the question of religious concessions. Over the years she was pursued in this fashion by Eric of Sweden, the Archduke Charles (as we have seen), Henri, Duke of Anjou and Francois, Duke of Alencon. With Eric the lack of real interest soon became mutual, and he went in pursuit of Mary of Scotland. With Charles and Henri the negotiations broke down over religion, and with Francois time eventually foreclosed the exercise in a very interesting way in 1581. From 1578 onward the Queen was endeavouring to persuade her council to accept Anjou (as he had then become), largely, it would seem, as a means of forestalling his proposed intervention in the Netherlands
, but the negotiations hung fire.[489] Then in August 1581 the Duke resolved to come in person to secure his prize, and Elizabeth succumbed to those charms which were so lacking in the eyes of her subjects. In what looks like an onrush of menopausal sexuality, she kissed him and swore that she would marry him. Her councillors and the ladies of her chamber were alike appalled, and spent the whole of the following night talking her out of her resolution. They succeeded and the next day she told the Duke that she had changed her mind. He departed, cursing the fickleness of women, and that was the end of her matrimonial adventures.[490] Contemporaries and historians alike have debated this curious episode. Was the Queen serious, even briefly, or was it another ploy aimed at getting rid of him? In a way it was symbolic of her whole attitude to marriage, in which the needs of the woman and of the politician were in constant tension. She probably would have married, if the conditions had been right, but they never were, and in the end she backed out of each negotiation on the ground of incompatibility, usually religious. This makes all her proposals look like episodes of foreign policy, unrelated to real emotion, but that was probably not the case. She metaphorically dangled her person before the courts of Europe in the hope of finding a satisfying relationship, but at the end the price in terms of surrendered authority, was always too high. Like her sister, Mary, although in a different way, Elizabeth was a victim of that culture which made it impossible to be both a ruler and wife. At the beginning of her reign, John Aylmer had proposed that a solution could be found, but it turned out not to be the case, and the Queen paid with a lifetime of frustration for the power which she cherished. God, who had given her a realm to rule, did not chose to find her a husband who would share that burden in a satisfactory way, and perhaps it could not be done.[491]